Why Do We Celebrate Women’s Day On 8th March?

International Women’s day (March 8) is a universal day celebrating the social, political, economic and cultural accomplishments of Women. The day also marks a call to action for accelerating gender parity.

It has been observed since the early 1900s and is now recognized each year on March 8. It brings together governments, Women’s organizations, corporations, and charities.

But how did it begin? Here is everything you need to know about this day.

How did it start?

It is very difficult to say exactly when this day began. It was during 1908 when 15000 Women trooped all over New York City where they were asking for their rights to vote, better pay and shorter working hours.

A year later, the first National Woman’s day was observed in the US on 28th February, in accordance with a declaration by the socialist party of America. In the year of 1910, a very well known woman from Germany, “Clara Zetkin” -leader of the ‘Women’s office’ for the social democratic party, proposed the idea of an International Women’s day. It was suggested by her that every country of this world should celebrate Women’s day every year to push for the demands of Women.

Around 100 Women from 17 countries gathered for a conference and agreed to her suggestion thus IWD was formed.In 1911, it was celebrated for the first time in Austria, Denmark, Germany, and Switzerland on March 19.

In 1913, it was decided to transfer this day to March 8, and it has been celebrated ever since on this day.In 2011, former US president Barack Obama proclaimed March to be ‘Women’s History Month’.

Why do we still celebrate it?

The core idea behind this move was achieving full equality between men and women which has still not been realized.A gender pay gap still persists all across the globe.Women are still not present in equal numbers in business or politics.Figures show that globally, Women’s education, health, and violence towards Women is still worse than that of men.

With reference to the report made by the World Economic Forum in 2017, it might take another 100 years before the global inequality between men and Women disappears entirely.

In 2017, because of the gender pay gap,’Women worked for free’ for 51 days of the year.

Women are paid less than half than men at some Britain’s major companies.This was found according to recent gender pay gap figures.

The vocal,headline-grabbing fight for Women’s rights has only increased in 2018, with female actresses donating money and wearing black at awards ceremonies to support Times up and BBC journalist Carrie Gracie publicly resigning as China editor over unequal pay.

How is IWD celebrated across the world?

Countries celebrate it in different ways.It is an official holiday in many countries.Many men present their wives, girlfriends, mothers and female friends with flowers and gifts.In Portugal and Italy, women celebrate the day by arranging parties and dinners.In Italy, Women are given yellow mimosas by men.While in countries like Colombia, Hungary, Poland, Latvia, Kazakhstan, Romania, Russia, Brazil and Slovakia, the day is celebrated by distributing gifts and flowers to Women.

Women’s day celebration in India

Like many other countries, Women’s day is celebrated with equal enthusiasm in India. Many organizations gear up to participate in various activities like mass rallies, seminars, documentaries and TV shows.In India, several organizations are working towards child education, eradication of dowry culture and reservation of seats for Women in local panchayats.Many events in India are concluded by praying for all those Women who have faced violence.

Women should be proud of being a woman as on her shoulder lies the responsibility of building the dreams of each of the members of her family.A woman plays various roles and that too with full love and enthusiasm.She is indeed the pillar of the society on whose shoulder there is the onus to take forward the existence of mankind in a smoother way.She knows an absolute solution to all the problems.Not only she is externally beautiful but her inner strength is the most beautiful thing on the earth.She is the only one who gives life to a life.Only a woman can give you everything from love to respect to strength.International Women,s day is one of those occasions that give an opportunity to celebrate the velour of Women and their inner strength.